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Character Creation
Background The primary goal of any role-playing game is to... play a role. It is important to start the character creation phase with a character concept in mind including goals, aspirations and personality. It is also helpful to establish links within the world (such as affiliations, family, enemies, friends) and usually a 'raison d'être' (i.e. why this character exists). After having established this background, this system is designed to make realising that character fairly straight-forward. Part #1: Race Races in Patera are designed to be flexible and capable of fulfilling many different roles within a party. While many other systems list race as the first choice, the reality of racial bonuses often makes choosing a race a subsequent choice to character ability selection. Effectively, some combinations of race and abilities (read class) are simply substandard or jarring. This is racist (literally) and while racist stereotypes make for interesting role-playing they make for restrictive character creation. Process: # Pick a Race # Establish basic facts such as height, weight and appearance # Determine your subtype (this varies with Race) # Pick up to 3 Racial or Cultural traits (this may be useful after determining skills) Part #2: Skills Skills in Patera represent what a character can do, rather than what they are. The general idea here is that any combination of skills should be somewhat viable (within limits). Characters creation is designed to be flexible and simple. Process: # Pick up to 30 points of Skills from any of the available Skill Schools #* Avoid taking more than 60% Combat or non-Combat skills #* You may not put more than 3 points into any individual Skill School at level 1. Part #3: Characteristics Patera has eight characteristics. The goal is to have somewhat deterministic but also random characteristics. As characteristics only modify D20 rolls but a maximum range of 6, it leaves characters open to perform actions in which they are not specialised with some hope of success. Process: # Roll 2D4-5 (-3 to 3) a total of eight times. #* You may assign these scores to whichever of the eight characteristics you want. #* It is suggested that you pick characteristics which augment your skill choices. #* It is OK to mix the order up, you may want to change your skills depending on your rolls here. Good and Bad Rolls Inevitably with any dice roll system, there will be amazing or terrible rolls. It is up for the player and DM to decide what constitutes high characteristics or low characteristics. In general to sum total of characteristics can vary up to 48 (total -24 to total +24). It is suggested that any given party should not vary by more than ~6. If this happens, then re-rolls or tweaks might be in order. Part #4: Talents and Techniques Although talents and techniques sounds better than techniques and talents, picking techniques first might be a bit easier. Techniques roughly correspond with actions that a character with training can perform. Actions which any character could reasonably perform are instead referred to as actions. Thus, techniques are the special actions that make a character somewhat unique from other characters. Talents on the other hand are a form of extra specialisation. Many talents augment existing techniques or provide passive bonuses or abilities. It might be worth skimming through talents before selecting your techniques, but in general, as characters are defined by what the do (rather than how well they do it) picking some iconic techniques and then supplementing the character with talents seems the best bet. Process: # Pick a total number of Techniques equal to 4 + Intellect. #* Techniques are divided by Skill School Or by the general Skill Divisions (Arcane Martial etc). #* At Level 1, a character can usually only select Level 1 or Level 3 Techniques (for having 3 Ranks in a Skill) so choices are somewhat limited. # Pick up to 3 Talents. #* Like Techniques, Talents are divided by Skill School OR by the general Skill Divisions (Arcane, Martial etc). #* At Level 1, a character can usually only select Level 2 Talents (for having 3 Ranks in a Skill) so choices are somewhat limited. Part #5: Pools Pools represent the resources which characters have at their disposal. Many skills grant players additional resources to use which will depend on the Skill Schools the player takes. However, those detailed below refer to ones which are universal to all characters. Process: # Determine Level Bonuses #* Each character may assign 4 points to the following statistics: Vitality, Morale, Mana #* A minimum of 1 must be assigned to Vitality & Morale #* Each level (including first) a character adds this same set of bonuses to their pools (see below). # Determine Health #* Stamina: 8 + Strength + 1/(3 ranks in Martial skills) #* Vitality: 8 + Fortitude + Level Bonuses (~ 1-3 per level including Level 1) # Determine Morale #* Morale: 8 + Mettle + Level Bonuses (~ 1-3 per level including Level 1) # Determine maximum and current Faith #* Maximum Faith: 20 + Mettle #* Starting Faith: 5 + Mettle Part #6: Saves, Checks and Rolls Once your character has all their abilities determined it is now time to do the pre-session calculations. Process: # Saves and Checks #* For each Characteristic, if this character has ranks in a Skill School associated with that Characteristic they have a Good save/check. Otherwise they have a Bad save/check #* Good Saves: (Level + Highest Skill Rank)/2 + Characteristic #* Bad Saves: (Level)/2 + Characteristic #* Example 1: A level 2 character with 4 ranks in Caniformia (Fortitude) and a Fortitude ''= +1 would have (2 + 4)/2 + 1 = +4 as their ''Fortitude save #* Example 2: A level 5 character with 7 ranks in Mobility (Agility) and an Agility = -3 would have (5 + 7)/2 - 3 = +3 as their Agility save # Attack rolls and Saves #* Attack rolls: (Level + Skill Ranks)/2 + Characteristic + Other Modifiers #* Save TS: 14 + (Level + Skill Ranks)/2 + Characteristic + Other Modifiers #* Example 1: A level 2 character with 4 ranks in Axe and Strength = +3 takes Hefty Strike. The attack bonus would be (2 + 4)/2 (Level & Ranks) + 3 (Strength) - 4 (Hefty Strike) = +2 #* Example 2: A level 5 character with 7 ranks in Fire Magic and Fervour +2 takes Fireball. The spell TS would be 14 (Base) + (5 + 7)/2 (Level & Ranks) + 2 (Fervour) + 0 (No other modifiers). # Defence #* Defence: 8 + (Level + Skill Ranks)/2 + Dexterity + Agility Higher Levels Whenever a character Levels-Up, they gain additional abilities. Process: # Characteristics and Traits #* Odd levels: Gain a Trait #* Even levels: Add one to a characteristic # Skill Points #* Gain 10 skill points #* A character may not invest more than Level+2 points in any individual skill # Talents and Techniques #* Learn one new Talent and Technique #* A character may not have more than Level+2 talents #* A character may not have more than (Level+2) x 2 + Intellect techniques # Pools #* Add the Pool bonuses selected at level 1 Category:Rules